Breaking Bad Season 5, Episode 2: “Madrigal”

Tonight’s Mike-heavy episode has a rather intense and thematically indicative opening. Mr. Schuler’s stoicism starts out funny, as he robotically eats from a bowl of tater tots and ignores the eager-to-please team of food scientists who have prepared a tasting, but then it becomes suspenseful as his stoicism continues through the rest of the scene, from his avoidance of the police through to his suicide on the toilet. It’s probably not a coincidence that he reminded me of Gus, especially in last season’s premiere, when he silently arrives at the lab, kills Hector, and leaves. If Gus and Mr. Schuler had switched places, might not Gus have behaved exactly the same way?


The reason this opening seems thematically indicative is that much of this episode seemed to be about the proper behavioral protocol for professional criminals. Gus, Mike, and Chow, abide by one set of nearly ironclad priorities: don’t give anything to the police, even if it means sacrificing yourself or the things you’ve worked for. Mike’s man Chris and the Madrigal executive Lydia have a different set of priorities, however: sacrifice anything and anyone in order not to get caught. It’s pretty clear that these two priorities don’t mix very well, and in this episode Mike has to do a lot of reluctant cleaning up after those who would prioritize themselves over those who prioritize their integrity. It’s this clash of priorities that also leads Mike to distrust Walt. Mike describes Walt as a ticking time bomb, and we can see why: Mike, astute as he is, correctly judges Walt as someone who will prioritize themselves over their integrity if push comes to shove. Even if Walt has always been a bit too ingenious and too lucky to be put in a situation where he would need to talk to the police, his recklessness is strong indication that he will probably wind up in such a situation, and that he could not be relied on to follow the professional protocols to which Mike adheres. Put plainly, Walt is not Mike’s type of criminal.

Nor is Lydia. In her first extensive scene, she immediately comes across as a pretentious, arrogant spaz, totally worthy of the condescension Mike shows her (as well as the waitress’s hilarious contempt for her). She refuses to listen to Mike, and attempts to use one of Mike’s own men to kill him. Mike’s too good for that though – as soon as Chow calls Mike, Mike knows what’s happened, and gets the drop on his would-be assassin. This leads to the chilling but seemingly inevitable scene where Mike kills Lydia. Except he doesn’t. Instead, he asks her if she can still get methylamine, and later calls Walt and tells him he’s accepted Walt’s offer of a three way split between the two of them and Jesse in their fledgling meth startup business.

I’m of two minds about Mike’s decision here. On the one hand, it seems a bit out of character. For someone as competent as Mike is at what he does, and who values professionalism and reliability as highly as he does, it seems unlikely that he would get into bed with not just one but two people he knows he can’t trust. On the other hand, the episode does a good job of establishing his motivation for such a decision. As Hank and Gomez reveal to Mike in their interrogation of him earlier in the episode, all of the Gus-money he stashed away for his granddaughter has been seized by the DEA (more on that scene below). Moreover, while he is a professional, the interrogation scene also reminds us that he’s a former cop. It’s easy to imagine that a lust for money (or at least, a desire to better the lives of his family) is what drove him toward a criminal lifestyle in the first place. Thus it’s feasible the same motivation could serve here. Moreover, perhaps unlike when he first started working with Gus, he knows exactly who he’s dealing with here: a megalomaniac and a skittish boob. Not the best partners to be involved with, but better the devil you know (or so he thinks – it’s unclear if he’s aware of Walt’s capacity for duplicity). Ultimately, if Mike kills Lydia and refuses Walt’s offer, then Jonathan Banks probably doesn’t have much of a role to play on the show going forward, and we’d all be poorer for it, so this is probably the best route for the show (although it would have been a powerfully dark ending for his character if the last we saw of him was his murdering Lydia).

The scene between Walt, Hank, and Gomez in the interrogation room was pretty good, even if it is straight out of a hundred film noir films: grizzled tough guy is peppered with questions by the police, who try to manipulate him into confessing. They both know all of the moves of this conversation, and play their roles accordingly. It’s a testament to this show – and to Jonathan Banks’s performance as Mike in particular – that I’m sympathetic to both of these characters in this scene. I like how Hank plays possum with Mike until Mike is about to leave, and then drops the bombshell about the seizure of Gus’s Cayman accounts (Hank has to resist the urge to smile as he’s about to close the trap). While Hank’s savvy is impressive, I also sympathize with Mike’s frustration and disappointment, as well as with his refusal to play into Hank and Gomez’s hands.

Once again, Jesse proves to be the most sympathetic character in an episode, this time through the guilt he feels over his almost shooting Walt after he finds the cigarette Walt plants in the house. I can’t decide whether or not this is a reaction that Walt anticipated. On the one hand, Walt’s a selfish bastard who has always underestimated Jesse (most recently in last week’s episode). It’s easy to think he thought Jesse would be all smiles and sunshine after finding the cigarette, and that this was just one more loose end that needed tying up. On the other hand, there’s a chance that Walt’s nonchalance over finding the cigarette is calculated to make Jesse feel guilty and tie him closer to Walt. Perhaps Walt knew if he simply acted relieved, rather than smug (now that the “truth” of Walt's innocence is evident), Jesse would feel even more guilty than he might otherwise. It’s tough to tell, although given that Walt’s always oversold any acting he’s had to do, I’m leaning toward his not anticipating Jesse’s reaction, but quickly recognizing it as an opportunity to join the two of them more closely.

Overall, it was an episode that spent a lot of time moving the characters into position for the subsequent developments, but given that it featured a lot of Mike’s knowing, world-weariness, it was still a lot of fun to watch.

Other thoughts:

- I loved the phone conversation between Walt and Jesse that plays over Walt’s creation of the fake ricin cigarette. It was both efficient and subtle narration, and provided a potential dangling cause for later in the season: doubtlessly the hidden ricin will come into play one way or another. Bold prediction: Walt, faced with a recurrence of his cancer and possibly other threats, takes it himself at the end of the series. Either that or it somehow ends up accidentally getting slipped into his system. Although perhaps not, considering that would make him more like Gus and Mr. Schuler.

- As usual, lots of nice stylistic touches, including: The montage of Jesse and Walt’s search through Jesse’s apartment for the ricin cigarette, with jump cuts galore; the backwards travelling shot down the length of the conference table during the summit meeting between the Madrigal executives and the DEA, and as has become typical for this show, shots looking through the bottoms of objects to actions taking place above (this time, Walt's preparation of the fake ricin).

- That’s The Caine Mutiny Mike’s watching before Walt and Jesse come over with their business proposal. The most obvious critical move here is link it to “mutinous” behavior of Mike’s underling later in the episode.

- Hank’s former boss’s speech about Gus being a totally different person right under his nose would be a bit too on the nose (especially when the episode cuts to a shot of Hank at the end of the line), but it’s saved by the dumbfounded delivery of the line by the actor playing the boss.

- Lydia fails in her clumsy attempt to fish for Walt’s name in her first conversation with Mike, because Mike has scruples. Once again, Walt is unknowingly being protected by others (even someone who more or less despises him).

- The scene where Mike almost murders Lydia is chilling, is it not? The lighting, the staging and framing, the nanny and the daughter almost walking too far down the hallway... it's pretty much a home security nightmare. Mike is the angel of death.

- Not much for Skyler in this episode, other than her mortification at Walt’s caress. Yikes.

- Jesse affectionately called the meth RV the “crystal ship.” Nice.

UPDATE: Sepinwall articulates very well why Mike is such a great character: "Mike gets to be Batman... [but] the enormous level of weariness and gravity that Jonathan Banks is able to convey throughout the hour always makes Mike seem incredibly human, no matter how many men he kills with ease."

Particularly strong Sepinwall and Fienberg discussion of this episode as well. I particularly like their discussion of Jonathan Banks's minimalism, Hank's prowess, and their disappointment with Lydia's introduction. There's a difference between disliking a character, and disliking the creative decisions that go into the creation of the character, and while I wasn't as put off by her introduction as they were, they make some interesting points.